Pistol & Rifle WC cancelled ahead of CWG

Zeenews Bureau New Delhi: The first major blow to India’s preparedness to host the Commonwealth Games 2010 in Delhi came in the form of the cancellation of the first ever Pistol and Rifle World Cup that was supposed to be hosted early next year. The World Cup, scheduled to take place in March 2010, was called off due to the non-availability of the right infrastructure for the event to happen. However, the ISSF denied that the step was taken due to lack of infrastructure. "The ISSF (International Sports Shooting Federation) withdrew quota places for the London Olympics from the event. Why should we waste resources when we are not going to get anything?" National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) official Rajiv Bhatia told reporters. "We had been hoping for home ground advantage, to get some quota places. Now we can hold a World Cup later."Bhatia denied the pullout, which led to the cancellation of the March event, had been due to the slow progress of renovation work at the shooting range in New Delhi ahead of the Commonwealth Games to be staged from Oct. 3-14 next year. Rule changes mean shooters can earn Olympic berths only from key international meets staged within two years of the 2012 Games, starting from next July, and the scrapping of the India meeting has been confirmed by the sport`s ruling body. The International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) website, in a bland acceptance to the sordid state of affairs, stated: “The 2010 ISSF World Cup in New Delhi has been cancelled. The organising committee of the New Delhi World Cup Stage withdrew its application in an official communication to the ISSF….the organisers in New Delhi revised their availability to host the competition.”On further looking into the matter, it was learnt by a leading newspaper through shooting federation officials that India had withdrawn simply to save face as the preparations were nowhere near complete. Baljeet Singh Sethi, National Rifle Association of India secretary-general, said that the construction work at Karni Singh Ranges was “way behind schedule”, and they couldn’t take a chance. “We’ve saved the country a much bigger embarrassment,” he said. “The ISSF was putting pressure to send out circulars to participants but with the Ranges nowhere near completion, we couldn’t have risked it. We saw a ray of hope in the latest Olympic committee ruling that the Delhi World Cup would not have any Olympic quota places for the 2012 Games. So we immediately wrote to the ISSF to cancel the event.”